Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm interested to know what stupid things you've done that have actually cost you cash-money as a result. Today I managed to forget my staff card which also doubles up as a free bus pass, so as well as having to pay 50p for the bus I was also facing the problem of not being able to get into a building entirely protected by a swipe-card mechanism. I've had to go and get a replacement card which would normally cost a fiver but they didn't charge me, which was some bonus. Total cost of stupidity today so far: 50p and lots of hassle.

Another time was when, several years ago, I insured myself on my mum's car for a week (at a cost of something silly like £50) and in that week managed to get clamped (£70) and then get a parking fine (£30). I think I spent most of the drive back to my mum's punching the steering wheel. Dead stupid.

Failed to realise that credit cards don't give you free money, so spent most of my university years paying tons in interest charges. Several hundred quid, which was a lot back then.

I once got between some steel shutter doors and a Maserati Birdcage (this one, in fact) that was rolling off some hydraulic ramps. Because of my stupid positioning, I couldn't stop it before it trapped me against the shutter and stopped on me, hurting my leg and putting a dent in the rear panel of the car.
Cost of re-shaping and the respray: Around £11,000. Oops.

This this this times a billion.

Sigh.

And I didn't even learn my lesson the first time.

Or the second.

Rev Owen is £100 billion in debt shockaaaah!

Near enough as makes no difference.

How in the name of christ could you afford £11k to fix that?

once i wrecked a pub's toilet.

Yeah, but what did it cost you? £££

not much, the guy was cool about that and i only had to give him 50€ to fix the door. He didn't even know i did it, but i'm such an honest man that i turned myself in.

There's other the thing about not accepting the right jobs and go for the wrong ones...but i can always think the other was worse....but i doubt that

Ah, apologies - it cost me nothing.

Um... I got one of those pre-pay credit cards to get some clothes from the USA and put £100 on it and threw away the bit of paper with the pin number on - how's that?

So you wrecked in on purpose? I thought you meant you shat everywhere.

i was drunk. It was Carnival and i was dressed as a chinese woman. I must have been possessed by Chun Li or something

I had the bright idea of firing coins out of my catapult at a paper target attached to my curtain. The reason the target was on the curtain was that I liked the way the coins sliced straight through it. Obviously, on my fourth or fifth attempt I hit the window, and that cost me £50 and a good hiding

Sort of similarly we used to have a slightly mental neighbour who one summer morning decided that sunrise was about the right time to mow his lawn, it was a hot night so the bedroom window was open, having been rudely awoken I leapt out of bed and slammed the window shut. The result was one completely smashed window and a load of fairly deep cuts on my chest.

When I changed my NatWest account from a normal account to a student account back in 2002, they offered me one of two 'free gifts' - a kettle, or £40 in cash. Student deals didn't start to get good until 2003, you see.

I nipped into my local NatWest branch to collect my £40, but when I got back home I discovered that I'd locked myself out of the house on the one week where my entire family were on holiday. I had to call a locksmith out which, amusingly, cost me £41.

On a similar theme, our drain blocked just before christmas and we had it unblocked on boxing day. It cost us all of the cash we received from family for xmas, plus about £20. Fun.

Good choice. Most locksmiths don't accept kettles as payment. Always check with your locksmith beforehand, mind.

Haha

My friend and I locked ourselves out of our new student house within the first three minutes of moving in. We dumped our bags in the hallway, called to each other 'to the Student Bar!' and shut the front door behind us, neither with keys.

Hm.
I once bid on an auction for a laugh, thinking it would be popular and go higher.
I won a 3ft giant cuddly toy pony for £40

I once threw a party for my form from school, including all the French exchange students..a large sliding patio door in the sun room somehow jumped off it's runners and fell to the patio. Luckily there was one older guy there who spoke fluent French that helped me get matters straight.
Still, that sliding glass door cost about £500 if memory serves.

My favourite ebay story has to be a mate who bid on a French horn thing that he was delighted to win for £3. He thought it would be fun at raves and stuff, a few days later a normal envelope arrived and out fell a tiny plastic horn from a Ewok action figure.

Idiotically bidding on eBay for a copy of the Bis album Social Dancing and assuming it would be on cd, not as it quite clearly stated on the listing vinyl. I seemingly forgot that it was ever a valid recording medium and was rather surprised to find the postman handing me a suspiciously LP shaped package one morning. I have no record player, naturally.

Ordering Clerks 2 because it was dirt cheap without checking to see if I'd already bought it was equally dimwitted. I, of course, had.

If anyone wants either for the cost of however much it take to post it to them then let me know, as I already have enough dust-gatherers so these items are surplus to requirements.

Quitting a job I really shouldn't have because I had (ahem - Ed) with my (cough, choke - Ed) who was also (thud - Ed) and couldn't really take the guilt.

On the plus side though, it eventually led to my becoming Canterbury's best sandwich maker, and meeting lots of lovely people who even now invite me to cross the country to drink their booze and shout at them.

A new game!

Using the old "random wikipedia article" system.



Doesn't really work.

Mimi is the closest so far, but Curiosity's made me laugh most as quitting a job after eloping sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd do.

Which, the beef sandwich or the bosses sister? Both?

sex

boss

married

I didn't think we were so much guessing as coming up with amusing alternatives - the actual words were obviously taken out for a reason, after all.

Philandering FTFY

Oh. Ok...

wolfbagging

tea-boy

a monkey

Various fines.

And I would have got away with it too, if not for et cetera.

Another Old(er) thread reborn!

No monetary cost, but a price to pay nontheless. When I was ooh, 11, my Dad graciously installed a dartboard for me and my slightly older brother in the hall, which was ace. One evening, whilst the parents went shopping, me and the bro were bored with 'normal' darts and decided to play an amusing 'see-who-can-throw-the-dart-the-hardest' varient. This quickly became 'see-who-can-throw-the-dart-the-hardest-at-a-piece-of-plywood-leaning-against-the-front-door'. This was fun, like Lord of the Flies, we were hunters! Unfortunatley, my aim faltered slightly, I missed the plywood and the dark embedded itself in the wire-lined safety glass of the front door at the EXACT SCEOND that Dad was putting his key in the lock on the other side. I have never moved so quickly in my life. Needless to say, we then had no dartboard.